BASKETBALL
Klay Thompson diagnosed
Golden State Warriors guard Klay Thompson has been diagnosed with a concussion, the team announced on Friday, and will not play again until he completes the league’s concussion protocol. That means there is no timetable for the backcourt standout to return to action as the opening game of the best-of-seven NBA Finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers looms at home on Thursday. Golden State produced the best record in the NBA this season at 67-15. The Warriors are back in the NBA Finals for the first time since 1975, when they beat Washington for the title. Thompson, who is to be re-evaluated daily, suffered the injury on Wednesday in a Western Conference-clinching playoff victory over Houston when leaping Rockets forward Trevor Ariza slammed a knee into the side of Thompson’s head. Thompson, 25, received his first All-Star Game nod this season. He averaged 21.7 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.9 assists in 77 games this season. In the playoffs, Thompson has averaged 19.7 points, 3.7 rebounds and 2.9 assists.
SOFTBALL
US side to play in Japan
The US women’s softball team is to participate in the four-team Japan Cup in August as preparation for the sport’s possible return to the Olympic program in 2020. Women’s softball was removed for the 2012 Olympics and will not be in the Rio de Janeiro Games next year either. Japan, the reigning world champion, are to host the 2020 Games and the host nation can propose the addition of sports. US softball officials hope a successful Japan Cup, which includes Taiwan and Australia, will influence the International Olympic Committee when it makes its final decision next year.
SOCCER
Suit targets Neymar move
Brazilian club Santos said on Friday it filed a suit with world body FIFA seeking compensation for a breach of contract in the transfer of forward Neymar to Barcelona, adding to the controversy that led to the resignation of the president of the Spanish champions. Santos president Modesto Roma said the team filed the suit against Barcelona, Neymar, his father and marketing firm Neymar Sports e Marketing. “Santos believes that Barcelona, Neymar and his company violated the transfer contract and therefore, it claims compensation of damages,” Roma said in a statement. The suit comes as Brazilian authorities began to investigate allegations of corruption in its soccer industry following a US probe that led to the arrests this week of top FIFA officials. Barcelona have been accused of tax fraud by Spanish authorities after it came to light that the striker’s transfer fee, initially disclosed as 57.1 million euros (US$62.8 million), was in fact closer to 100 million euros.
SOCCER
Men charged over fixing
Singapore charged four men for attempting to fix a Southeast Asian Games match scheduled for yesterday. The men were accused of plotting to arrange for players of the Federacao Futebol Timor-Leste to lose their match against Malaysia, according to charge sheets filed in a Singapore state court. The men — one Singaporean, two Timor-Leste nationals and an Indonesian — allegedly agreed to corruptly give or receive S$15,000 (US$11,000) in bribes. If convicted, the men could be jailed for as long as five years and fined as much as S$100,000. They were not represented by lawyers and did not enter a plea. Singapore is hosting this year’s Southeast Asian Games and the soccer events at the Games began on Friday.
INJURY TURMOIL: Despite stunning French Open champions Paolini and Errani to advance, Chan was forced to pull out after her partner’s tearful women’s singles defeat Last year’s mixed doubles champions Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan and Poland’s Jan Zielinski on Monday crashed out of the quarter-finals at Wimbledon, leaving the Taiwanese star focused on pursuing a fifth women’s doubles title in London, while a partner injury forced compatriot Chan Hao-ching to give up on her doubles campaign. Hsieh and Zielinksi, who last year also won the Australia Open title, narrowly lost their opening set 7-6 (9/7), before Britain’s Joe Salisbury and Brazil’s Luisa Stefani stunned the former champions 6-3 at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. The Taiwanese-Polish duo had been dominant in the first two
Real Madrid’s FIFA Club World Cup quarter-final against Borussia Dortmund had taken three crazy turns during nine minutes of second-half stoppage time when Marcel Sabitzer chested the ball and sent a right-footed volley toward Thibaut Courtois’ post. Courtois leapt to his right, extended the long arm on his 2m frame and just managed to get his gloved fingertips on the ball, knocking it down. Courtois hit the ground as the ball bounded up. He looked skyward, planted his right hand to regain his balance, grabbed the ball with both hands on the second bounce and fell onto it with his chest. Sabitzer turned
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has overturned French Olympic fencer Ysaora Thibus’ four-year suspension for doping, ruling that her positive test for a banned substance was caused by kissing her then-boyfriend, American fencer Race Imboden. Thibus, a silver medalist in team foil at the Tokyo Games, had tested positive for ostarine, a prohibited muscle-building substance, during a competition in Paris in January last year. However, CAS concluded there was no intentional wrongdoing, finding it scientifically plausible that repeated kissing over several days with Olympic medalist Imboden — who was taking ostarine at the time — led to accidental contamination. The court
‘SU-PENKO’: Hsieh and Ostapenko face a rematch against their Australian Open final opponents, the same duo Hsieh played in last year’s Wimbledon semi-finals Taiwanese women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei and Latvian partner Jelena Ostapenko on Wednesday survived a near upset to the unseeded duo of Sorana Cirstea of Romania and Russia’s Anna Kalinskaya, setting up a semi-final showdown against last year’s winners. Despite losing a hard-fought opening set 7-6 (7/4) on a tiebreak, the fourth seeds turned up the heat, losing just five games in the final two sets to handily put down Cirstea and Kalinskaya 6-3, 6-2. Nicknamed “Su-Penko,” the pair are next to face top seeds Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic and Taylor Townsend of the US in a reversal of last
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